The present invention relates to personnel chambers and more particularly to an emergency exit for personnel chambers such as associated with mobile homes and contaminant protection chambers.
Emergency escape exits for personnel located in the side walls of housing chambers have been generally well known in the art. For the most part these exits have been positioned at window level or above, including doorways, have required considerable space in the side walls of the chambers, have been visually unaesthetic, and have been comparatively complex and expensive in construction, operation and maintenance. Further, a number of these exits have failed to consider the problems inherent in emergencies, such as fire with concomitant smoke and contaminant gases, and have located such exits in areas where smoke is likely to present serious inhalation problems. In fact, in some cases, the emergency exits, themselves, serve to provide natural barriers, concentrating smoke and contaminant gases around escaping personnel when in use.
Some of the earlier emergency exit devices which have employed either doorways or windows and which have included collapsible stairways or poles can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,658,702, issued to W. W. Osborne on Nov. 10, 1953; U.S. Pat. No. 2,965,193, issued to R. J. Murphy on Dec. 20, 1960; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,259,207, issued to W. A. Schoeffler on July 5, 1966. Later issued U.S. Pat. No. 3,477,543 issued to K. J. Vigluicci on Nov. 11, 1969; U.S. Pat. No. 4,237,654, issued to R. Landum et al, on Dec. 9, 1980; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,589, issued to B. A. Longenecker on May 1, 1984, also have failed to recognize problems inherent with smoke and certain contaminant gases, teaching comparatively complex and space consuming door or window emergency escape exits which are comparatively difficult and expensive to construct, install, operate and maintain.
The present invention recognizing the importance of location of emergency escape exits due to smoke and contaminant gases which might occur in mobile vehicles and contaminant protection chambers, provides emergency exit structure which encourages escaping personnel, when such emergencies arise, to crawl below the rising smoke and contaminant gases, which is readily operable, which requires only the space essential for passage therethrough, and which does not afford a concentration barrier for such smoke and gases. In addition, the present invention provides an escape structure which is straightforward, efficient and economical to manufacture, install, operate and maintain and which can be readily incorporated into walls of existing structure without materially changing structural strength, insulation capability or appearance of such side wall.
Various other features of the present invention will become obvious to one skilled in the art upon reading the disclosure set forth herein.